An H-SC Education Where It’s Needed Most
by: J.B. Potter ‘11Alumnus John Axsom visits Future Educators Club, describes teaching in troubled Norfolk school district
On Wednesday, April 7th, the Future Educators Club was pleased to host a talk by John Axsom ’05. Mr. Axsom is entering his fourth year of teaching Social Studies classes at a middle school in Newport News. The section of Newport News in which Mr. Axsom teaches suffers from high rates of poverty, crime, and gang violence. Accordingly, Mr. Axsom takes a pragmatic approach to teaching, an approach based partially on his time here at Hampden-Sydney.
Above all else, Hampden-Sydney taught Mr. Axsom the importance of a good education. In his view, such an education is embodied in Hampden-Sydney’s liberal arts curriculum. This curriculum makes students well rounded by prompting them to ask “why” questions and teaching them how to think and write critically. By becoming a teacher in a disadvantaged area, Mr. Axsom’s applied his H-SC education in a way that becomes “a good man and a good citizen.”
According to Mr. Axsom, becoming an educator is great way to serve one’s country. However, to be an effective and positive influence, one’s first priority must always be the kids. This is especially true in Mr. Axsom’s case. Many of his students come from troubled homes and have a problem with authority. In just this year alone, Mr. Axsom has broken up thirty-one fights and drug dogs have visited the school four times. Given this, Mr. Axsom works diligently to reach the kids and get them hooked on learning.
Mr. Axsom hates teaching from a textbook; he prefers to teach like Aristotle. In other words, he strives to teach from his mind as well as his heart, and employ new and refreshing teaching methods. In his experience, he has found that such an approach discourages boredom and gets kids more involved in the learning process. For instance, Mr. Axsom integrated Homer’s Odyssey into one of his classes, and discovered that his students loved it. And true to Homer’s adage, “orderliness produces bright children,” Mr. Axsom has sought to instill a sense of leadership and rigor in his classroom.
In promoting leadership and rigor, Mr. Axsom has high expectations of his students. Indeed, he holds them to higher standards than the SOL Tests. In his views, the SOLs are not rigorous enough because one can pass many of the tests with a score of just over 50%. Regardless, Mr. Axsom’s methods have worked in practice. His more rigorous standards have increased the percentage of his students that pass the SOLs. But ultimately, Mr. Axsom is not really concerned about increasing the SOL passage rate. In truth, he is concerned for the well-being of his students, and wants to help prepare them, in some way, for the real world. Thus, to help prepare them, he gives a taste of Hampden-Sydney—he teaches them how to learn and how to think.
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